DNA Results from Athletigen

So Tbear received his Athletigen DNA Results last week.

If your unaware of it check it out further at there website - athletigen.com. Basically it’s a report that gives you insights you need to understand your body, leading to more optimal decision making while training. They help make you become a better you – in terms of keeping your body strong and healthy.

Something I received, that I didn’t find too surprising was that I have a variant of ACTN3 (A.K.A ‘the sprint gene’) associated with power-oriented muscle performance. Also another cool one was IL6 and IGF2 (Post-Exercise Soreness and Inflammation Gene Influence) which put me with faster recovery and adaptation to strenuous exercise. No wonder I got into this cross training gig so quickly after my back surgery in late 2004 and kept with it.

As a past football, baseball, basketball, tennis, soccer, badminton, golf and discus thrower I thought I had some sort of athletic coordination gene, but I that one is truly not genetic. And I do now understand the Sprint and Power Performance marker helped me in all those stop and go sports above.

Anyway you should consider the testing...

You’ll get lots of DNA insights that will help you become aware of yourself and could use them to refine one’s training, nutrition, sleep and potential injury risks.

For example:

I need have no genetic contribution to my endurance abilities - bummer :(

I need to spend more time training lactate threshold, as I’m a slow adapter - bummer :(

I have potential risks associated with Osteoarthritis, Ligament Injury, and Bone Mineral Density. So they recommend me to do weightlifting, maintain my joints with a full range of motion and avoid poor technique under load. Cool. I’m already doing that.

Nutrition-wise – Increased requirement for Folate (B9), and I metabolize Iron and Vitamin D slower than others. Did not know this. I'll need to eat more spinach and liver.

I have a lactose intolerance risk and low sensitivity to caffeine. Yup.

Lastly, I knew this would be true. I’m a Night Owl and should consider moving some of my AM sessions to PM.

I really liked the amount of clarity and detail provided (35 pages to start) in terms of the science behind the results. Athletigen tells you how they came to those conclusions and why they make the recommendations they do. It’s pretty cool to see all the technical details and explanations that are easily understandable and interesting. It rates the research (and continues to update in the coming years) on a confidence grading scale of A-C with 4 sections in each. (A= strong evidence, C= weaker evidence and their results are more on preliminary studies). This helped me prioritize which opportunities I’ll work on and which ones I shouldn’t take too seriously.